CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MY EYES MAY PLAY tricks on me if I’m up all night with a sick kid, but not on a normal day. I knew I had seen two ledger books on Natalie’s desk. She said she’d kept the money from the rummage sale in the back of a bottom file drawer, so I decided it was worth a look to see if the second ledger was there. I certainly knew where the first one had been the night of Aaron Taylor’s death.
Had Natalie been able to get inside Sand and Sea the last two days, a second ledger would likely be gone. But, she hadn’t. However, when the police let her return, the second one might vanish.
My chance to hunt for the book was tonight. Police tape still stretched across each of the center’s entrances, but I hadn’t seen padlocks. I figured my back door key would work.
Scoobie and I went to bed at eleven Monday night. I pretended to be restless, and finally said I’d take a pillow and blanket to the couch, so he could sleep.
In a muffled voice, he asked, “You want me to go out there?”
“No. I won’t sleep here or there. You need to get up early.” I slipped out of our bed and shut the bedroom door behind me. In the bathroom, I took the clothes I’d worn that day from the hamper and put them back on.
If Scoobie got up while I was sitting in the living room, I’d say I wanted to go for a walk to tire myself out. And I did plan on walking.
I leafed through a grocery store circular while I listened for Scoobie’s rhythmic breathing to kick in. It usually took about ten minutes. When I was sure he was in a deep sleep, I put on a hoodie and slipped out the kitchen door.
Had it been summer, tourists would still have roamed the streets at midnight. In late October on a chilly night, I had the sidewalks to myself. I walked briskly down D Street, staying on the side without streetlights.
In two blocks, I turned and headed toward Main Street and the Sand and Sea building. I could see a couple people milling about at the corner near the Sandpiper Bar, but I wouldn’t walk that far.
At the daycare center, I walked through the grass on the side that didn’t have the parking lot and made for the back door. I stopped a few feet from it and studied the crisscrossed yellow police tape. “Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound.”
I quickly unlocked the door, ducked under the tape, and closed the door behind me. It wasn’t until I stood still that I realized my heart pounded wildly.
The dark hallway felt ominous, but I didn’t dare turn on a light. My fingers grasped the phone in my pocket, but I decided to wait until I was in Natalie’s office to turn it on.
After half-a-minute, my eyes adjusted enough to walk past the kitchen and turn into her office. Without lights, I doubted anyone could see me through the window, but I stooped to be sure.
I crawled to the file cabinet and pulled on the bottom drawer. Locked. Why didn’t I think of that? I sat back on my haunches. I’d come this far.
I crawled to Natalie’s desk and opened the middle drawer, which emitted a faint squeak. I’d seen her pull keys from it, and hoped they were in there and not with her. I got lucky. The ring held seven or eight keys, with two small enough to belong to the four-drawer file cabinet. But I’d have to stand up to open it.
Rather than do that, I reached up, fumbling with one key, then another before the second one turned the lock and it popped out. I gently pulled open the bottom drawer.
Unlike other drawers I’d seen Natalie pull files from, this one was a mishmash of files, a see-through zippered bag that held a few make-up items, a tied accordion file that said “staff ratings,” the metal petty cash box, and the second green ledger I’d seen on her desk a few days ago.
At least, a ledger. I knew it wasn’t the one I usually saw with cash receipts, because that one had Aaron’s blood on it and was surely at the police station.
I sat cross-legged on the floor, opened the ledger, and turned on my phone’s light. It seemed to have records of cash taken in, some for tuition, some for fundraisers, others for donations.
Leafing through, amounts looked familiar, such as the weekly fee for a potty-trained toddler. The most recent entries were for the baked goods and rummage sale. That’s when it got interesting.
Natalie had named a figure of $3,500 in income, which had been impressive. The sale had several payment stations, as she’d called them – one for baked goods, one for toys, another for household items, and a fourth for clothing and accessories. While this meant more people handled money, it also meant shorter lines to pay. Always a good idea when a lot of people have kids with them.
Not being an accountant, I devise simple ways to account for money when Harvest for All has a fundraiser. Natalie’s system looked similar. Each payment station had its own pages, and each sale had a separate listing. Goods were not itemized separately unless something was more than ten dollars. An entry would say something like “toys,” or “mixed clothing sizes.”
A total for each payment station list appeared at the bottom of each station’s pages. So, people bought $972 worth of toys. Next to $972 was the figure $892, and there were light checkmarks next to a few items. The items added to $80, the difference between $972 and $892.
I dropped the ledger on the floor. I didn’t need to look at the ledger that usually rested in her desk drawer to know that it would show $892 for money raised through the sale of toys rather than the $972 in this book.
My first thought was why, and my second was who would risk their job and reputation for $80? Of course, done often enough – perhaps even with some tuition payments – it could be more.
Child care workers make too little money in relation to their importance in society. Especially my little corner of it. The parents did collect money from almost every family so that each staff member got a $200 bonus the week before Christmas. Mr. Markle gave each staff member a $15 gift certificate before Thanksgiving.
Was Natalie so desperate that she falsified income? Or maybe the money wasn’t for her. The day of the break-in, Aaron had asked her about “the books.” Was it some kind of a payoff to him? That seemed far-fetched.
I stared at the closed ledger. When Natalie didn’t have enough money to secure the building’s mortgage on her own, who helped her pull together the other three investors? Did she know all three? Sylvia said Frank Fitzpatrick brought her in. Was he a friend of Aaron’s?
A light flashed in the window and quickly went off. Someone with a flashlight, not a car’s headlights. Maybe someone doing a late-night walk with their dog.
Footsteps by the back door nixed that idea. For about five seconds, I froze. Then I quickly put the ledger in the bottom door, shut it, and pushed the lock on the top right of the file cabinet.
“Damn! The key!” I pulled it out of the lock, tossed it in the middle drawer of Natalie’s desk, and crawled to the door of her office. Like a dog looking for its owner, I peered around the door jamb.
A key turned in the lock, but the door didn’t open quickly. I imagined the person looking around to see if anyone was watching.
Still stooped over, I scurried down the hall and ducked into the little sick room. It had no closet, so I pulled the curtain and sat on one of the cots. My feet wouldn’t show, but if someone came in, I’d be toast.
My heart beat in my ears, but I still heard soft footsteps move the short distance from the back door into Natalie’s office.
Who could it be? Several other parents had keys to the side door, but I thought only I and the staff had keys to the back door.
I had to strain to hear, but clearly recognized the light squeak as the middle drawer of Natalie’s desk opened. Did I have a shadow repeating my actions, or had another devious person entered Sand and Sea Daycare?
I couldn’t discern keys being withdrawn from the drawer or inserted into the file cabinet, but the rolling sound of a file drawer opening was clear. Then came a whispered, “oomph.” Probably someone squatting to open the bottom drawer.
In a few seconds, the drawer slid shut. Then nothing. What were they doing?
Nervous perspiration beaded on my forehead. I began to sense nervous body odor, and hoped the other stealthy visitor didn’t walk down the hall.
After another fifteen seconds or so, the person left the office and made for the back door. Still they made no sound, and I wasn’t about to peer from my hiding place to see if I recognized a bottom.
The door closed and the key, inserted from the outside, flipped the bolt. I bowed my head and realized I was shaking.
After two minutes of no sounds, I crept out of the sick room. I wanted to bolt out the back door, but forced myself back into Natalie’s office to retrieve the file cabinet key and check the bottom drawer.
As I assumed, the other interloper had taken the ledger.
A LIGHT IN THE LIVING room in the wee hours of Tuesday morning reminded me I hadn’t left a note. I ran up the front steps and Scoobie greeted me at the door.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t leave a note. I took a walk so I could get tired.” I hugged him. “Forgive me for worrying you?”
“I looked in the bathroom and saw your pajamas on the hamper and your clothes from today gone. I figured I would have heard a kidnapper.” He looked at me with raised eyebrows.
I had stopped shaking, but my husband knows me well. Time to invent something. “Next time I’ll leave a note.” I gestured toward the living room, and he followed me. “You won’t believe what I saw.”
“After midnight at the Jersey shore? Could be anything.” We sat next to each other on the sofa.
“Almost automatically, I walked toward Sand and Sea. And I saw someone go in there.”
“Natalie drove up?”
“I didn’t see a car, and I was half a block away.” Lie, lie. “The person went inside, so they had to have a key, came back out, and left.” Truth, truth.
He regarded me. “Why is that so odd? I mean this late, of course it is.”
“I could see the police tape is still up. They must have ducked under it.”
“Huh, seems like a stupid thing to do. The police could be keeping an eye on the place.”
Damn. Did they see me? “I guess it could have been Natalie, but I wasn’t about to call out.” The two security cameras had been in the playroom and by the side door. I hoped none had been added.
“Were they carrying anything? Do you think we should call the police?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t see anything, but if it was something small, I wouldn’t have.” Small like a ledger held under one’s arm. “Should one of us ask Natalie if she went in there?”
Scoobie frowned, and stood. “I think we’ve minded her business enough. If we hear about a break-in…”
“Another break-in,” I said.
“Yeah. Then I guess we tell Morehouse.” He held a hand down to me. “Come to bed, Mom. We have to be up at six.”
I headed to the bathroom to wash up before getting in bed. If I smelled like nervous sweat, Scoobie would know I’d been up to something.